Ice cream is typically scooped from a container. However, it has also been known to dispense ice cream by forcing the ice cream from a supply into a scoop or other type mold and discharging individual scoops or molds of ice cream. Such apparatus is illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,716,385; 2,728,306; 2,778,321; 2,899,988; 3,590,750; and 4,420,948. Individual scoops of ice cream have also been molded and discharged directly from the molds as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,244,470 or into a container as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,645,093. Frozen confections have also been packaged in a flexible, segmented plastic tube formed so as to allow individual portions to be easily separated as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,223,043. Sausage and other meat products have also been packaged in a relatively long tubular casing. Cookie dough, cheese, and other food products have also been packaged in relatively short tubular casings and are sometimes stored in a frozen state. In some applications the tubular casing is edible and in other applications is inedible and must be removed prior to consumption of the encased product. The advantages of storing sausage in a relatively long, flexible tubular casing have long been recognized. However, it has not been known so far as applicant is aware to package ice cream or the like in a tubular casing, freeze the casing and its contents, coil the frozen tubular encased ice cream and store the coils of ice cream as a stored bulk supply in a dispensing apparatus. More specifically, it has not been known to provide apparatus for forming scoops of ice cream from such a frozen tubular supply and transferring individual scoops to a cup, ice cream cone or the like in coordination with removing the casing from the ice cream.
The present invention therefore has as its principal object that of providing an apparatus and method based on dispensing individual scoops of ice cream or the like from a frozen bulk supply stored in an elongated relatively long tubular casing. Other objects will appear as the description proceeds.